The invention relates to the field of decorated ice cream confectionery items, particularly ice cream desserts with a complex attractive decoration reminiscent of the “art nouveau” style.
The application of continuous extrusion to the manufacture of decorated ice cream confectionery desserts is known.
The conventional method consists in depositing a continuous sausage of ice cream onto a moving conveyor belt. The sausage can then be decorated by depositing continuous or discontinuous decorative elements, for example, continuous elements, using auxiliary extrusion devices comprising fixed nozzles situated tangentially with respect to the sausage, for example moved back and forth in a plane parallel to the axis of the sausage. The decoration obtained is not very varied.
With a view to providing novel forms, EP-A-0 044 689 relates to a method and to an apparatus for manufacturing ice cream desserts using a rotary joint allowing the continuous extrusion of multicoloured twisted sausages of ice cream, that is to say products in which the mass of ice cream itself constitutes the decorative element on account of its form. The construction of a rotary extrusion head is relatively complicated: seals need to be provided between the moving parts and the fixed parts actually at the nozzle, and a mechanism has to be provided for driving the moving parts. Such a head is bulky and difficult to clean.
EP-A-0 328 170 relates to an ice cream dessert-decorating device, also employing a rotary head comprising a rotary joint moved by a programmable controller. In one embodiment, the device makes it possible to produce a ruffled decoration on round desserts by altering the relative flow rates of ice cream and the rate of rotation of the rotary joint of the distributor.
To the same end, EP-A-0 234 376 relates to an apparatus for the manufacture of decorated sausages of pasty products comprising no rotary nozzle, in which ice cream is extruded continuously from a nozzle secured to a moving support placed over a moving conveyor belt, the relative movements of the nozzle and the conveyor belt being such as to reproduce the movement that a confectioner gives to a piping nozzle to form a uniformly rolled continuous sausage.
EP-A-0 366 978 also relates to the production of decorated ice cream desserts without the use of a rotary joint, in which the mass of ice cream extruded itself constitutes the decoration, consisting in producing a superposition of layers of flat ribbons of ice cream using a flat nozzle situated over a conveyor belt moving slowly and parallel to it, by using the high speed of extrusion of the ice cream relative to the slow movement of the conveyor belt, which leads to the deposition under gravity of folded ribbons which overlap in the manner of pieces of cloth coming off a weaving loom. The forms obtained are not highly decorative.
It is found that, so far, there is no known method or device for the continuous manufacture of decorated ice cream desserts of complex form reminiscent of certain art nouveau décor, for example those achieved by the architect Gaudi. The present invention now provides thee features.